By T N Ashok
WASHINGTON DC: US President Donald Trump cut short his visit to Canada to return home after the G7 summit to take stock of the situation as he ruled out what national security advisor Tulsi Gabbard had to say about the alleged nuclear facility in Iran. Trump believes Iran is going nuclear. This development in the Oval office on Tuesday has led to the belief that Trump will lead US participation in war against Israel if Iran does not surrender.
Residents of Tel Aviv and Tehran, began fleeing the city for safety as Iran began raining missiles on Israeli cities. Tehran is home to industries ranging from textiles to chemicals to automation.
Israel has already bombed out many of the nuclear facilities and it’s reported that the nuclear enrichment facility at Nantz has imploded under the impact of heavy bombing. Most of the centrifuges in the reactors have been completely destroyed, the IDF claimed.
Trump has extended support to Israel and it is reported that the US had prior knowledge of the Israeli offensive on Iran and extended tacit support. The next stage is whether the US wants to get involved. While pro-Israel groups want Trump to get into the act, Trump is weighing the options of what backlash the American involvement could leave with Arab nations, whom he is trying to cultivate for commerce and trade, Arab voters at home, and domestic Americans who want him to pursue America first policy and not send troops to overseas countries where American interest are not involved.
In Iran’s case, the theocratic state going nuclear is a direct threat to the national security of the United States. Can Trump afford to be on the sidelines is the question? Will the bogey of Iran having nuclear weapons or on the way to making one turn out to be a damp squib like Iraq having weapons of mass destruction as UN inspectors found no evidence of it.
In any case, diplomatic efforts by Trump to persuade Iran to give up its nuclear enrichment facility have not yielded results. Iran is still a rogue state which cannot be trusted and whips up sympathy with a swathe of a vast majority of Arab nations, according to Trump advisers.
US foreign policy administrators still have no clue as to how trusted allies in the Arab world such as Saudi Arabia, UAE, Egypt and Qatar and Syria would react if Iran were to be bombed by US airplanes. Notwithstanding the fact that these countries might be harbouring silent reservations on US arms supplies to Israel.
Israel is hell bent on dismantling the military infrastructure of Iran, with or without US help and as Benjamin Netanyahu, its leader, says their target is now the leader of Iran, Ayatollah al Khameini
The Ayatollah is over 80 years old and the clergy of the theocratic state is already on the search for a successor, so eliminating him is no big deal for Israel. It’s a moral victory for Israel but the problem is that a new Ayatollah would take his place and another and another in the line of succession who will all ardently pursue the anti-semitic policies and the nuclear programme, if Iran survives and fights.
Dismantling the theocratic state by eliminating its religious pontiff is not that easy as it sounds as Israel would like to free the people from the years of long oppression of civil rights of the citizens by the Muslim clergy and see a modern Iran emerge.
So does the USA and other Western Nations. But the means to the end seems fraught with danger which cannot be underestimated. And there is a strong difference of opinion between Israel and western nations including the USA on the ways to do it.
Like Lebanon, where Israel killed a large number of leaders from the Iran-backed Hezbollah militant group, Israel’s military appears willing to take out targets if and when they see them. Although it wasn’t official, Hezbollah was more or less the government in Lebanon. It ran the airports, the borders and it had the most powerful militia, making it more authoritative than the country’s armed forces.
In Iran, the regime is the real government, Israel appears to be talking about effectively decapitating the country’s leadership along with the Revolutionary Guard — a significant military force with influence reaching deep into Iran’s power structure. This will certainly mean a different kind of government if Israel can operate there at will militarily through a sort of regime change.
While Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have called on residents of Tehran to evacuate, leaving the city might prove more difficult. Iran’s capital for more than 200 years, the city is home to around 9.5 million of the country’s 90 million-strong population, although there are more than 14 million people in the metro area. Located at the foot of Mount Damavand, it is also home to the country’s largest economic center and a base for basic industries, including automation, textiles and chemicals. Many schools, universities, museums and theatres are also located in the city.
Israel’s Health Ministry said 154 people were hospitalized overnight — all of them injured getting to shelters or suffering with anxiety. None were directly injured by Iran’s latest round of retaliatory airstrikes, Shira Solomon, a ministry spokesperson, said in a statement. Most of those in hospital, 130, were in a “mild condition,” 15 were undergoing evaluation and five were suffering from “anxiety,” Solomon said.
Jordan’s King Abdullah II said Israel’s strikes on Iran are “a threat to people everywhere” and show that “there is no telling where the borders of this battleground will end.” “Today, that world is in moral decline,” Abdullah said in an address to European Union lawmakers in Strasbourg, France. “A shameful version of our humanity is unfolding before our eyes in real time, and our global values are unravelling at a shocking pace with devastating consequences. Nowhere is that clearer than in Gaza.”
The monarch who has been criticized in some quarters for not doing enough to support Palestinians, who make up half of his population of 11.5 million, added that Israel’s war “defies international law, moral standards, and our common values.” “If our global community fails to act decisively, we become complicit in rewriting what it means to be human,” he said. “And now with Israel’s expansion of its offensive to include Iran, there is no telling where the boundaries of this battleground will end. That, my friends, is a threat to people everywhere.” (IPA Service)
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